possession of marijuana remains a federal crime under 21 u.s. code section 844 putting those states and their citizens at odds with the federal government and federal law enforcement. mother jones reporter josh harkinson has been all over the story, joining me now. welcome back inside "the war room." >> glad to be here, jennifer. >> jennifer: glad to you have back to talk about an issue that's evolving obviously. the people may be ahead of the laws on this. smoking pot and -- the view of it was once considered a scourge. what's happened? >> i think started in 1996 when california voters passed prop 215 which was this really loosely-worded ballot measure that made medical marijuana legal and the following year, about 400,000 californians got these medical pot cards which really you could get for anything like hangnail or writer's cramp. i got one for writer's cramp myself. >> jennifer: wow. >> so it basically was essentially legal. >> jennifer: did you do that as an experiment as a reporter or did you do it because you did have writer's cramp? >>